Grammy Awards 2017 – All The Classical Winners
The Grammies are over for another year and the 59th annual awards ceremony contained 10 categories for classical music out of its total of 84.
Notable among the nominees for Best Opera Recording was the Royal Opera’s production of Szymanowski’s Król Roger, a co-production with Opera Australia, currently in an enormously successful season at the Sydney Opera House. The production features tenor Saimir Pirgu who also performed at the Royal Opera and on the recording. Sadly, the disc did not win with the accolade going to the LA Opera for Corigliano’s The Ghosts Of Versailles. The disc, released on the Pentatone Music label also won the award for Best Engineered Album, Classical.
American composer Michael Daugherty (b 1954) did well with the album of his music Tales Of Hemingway winning in three categories.
If you’re wanting to bulk up your recording with other winners, here are the success stories from that evening:
Best Classical Instrumental Solo, Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Classical Composition: Daugherty – Tales Of Hemingway, Zuill Bailey; Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor (Nashville Symphony), Naxos label
Best Orchestral Performance: Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow – Symphonies Nos. 5, 8 & 9, Andris Nelsons, conductor (Boston Symphony Orchestra) on Deutsche Grammophon
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance: Steve Reich,Third Coast Percussion on Cedille Records
Best Classical Solo Vocal Album: Tie – Schumann & Berg Dorothea Röschmann, Mitsuko Uchida, accompanist on Decca and Shakespeare Songs, Ian Bostridge, Antonio Pappano, accompanist (Michael Collins, Elizabeth Kenny, Lawrence Power & Adam Walker), on Warner Classics
Best Choral Performance: Penderecki Conducts Penderecki, Volume 1, Krzysztof Penderecki, conductor, Henryk Wojnarowski, choir director (Nikolay Didenko, Agnieszka Rehlis & Johanna Rusanen; Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra; Warsaw Philharmonic Choir) on Warner Classics
Producer Of The Year, Classical: David Frost for Bach: The Cello Suites According To Anna Magdalena (Matt Haimovitz) • Bates: Anthology Of Fantastic Zoology (Riccardo Muti & Chicago Symphony Orchestra) • Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5 (Jonathan Biss) • Brahms & Dvořák: Serenades (Boston Symphony Chamber Players) • Fitelberg: Chamber Works (ARC Ensemble) • Ispirare (Melia Watras) • Overtures To Bach (Matt Haimovitz) • Schoenberg: Kol Nidre; Shostakovich: Suite On Verses Of Michelangelo Buonarroti (Ildar Abdrazakov, Alberto Mizrahi, Riccardo Muti, Duain Wolfe, Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus) • Shadow Of Sirius (Jerry F. Junkin & The University Of Texas Wind Ensemble)
